Top US Official Ricky Gill To Visit India For India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor Push Amid Tariff Tensions

Amid ongoing tensions over the revised US-India tariffs, a high-level US delegation led by Ricky Gill, Special Assistant to President Donald Trump for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, is scheduled to visit India during the week of 4 August, The Hindu reported.

The officials will participate in a conference in Delhi focused on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).

The visit comes at a time when India is navigating both diplomatic and logistical challenges related to the IMEC, including geopolitical instability in the Middle East.

The corridor, first announced on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, is aimed at creating a strategic infrastructure and trade route connecting India to Europe via the Middle East.

The IMEC is projected to cut transit time between its eastern and western ends by 40 per cent and reduce costs by 30 per cent compared to the Suez Canal route.

The first summit for the project was held in Mumbai in April 2025.

However, the US visit also coincides with growing friction over President Trump’s new executive order imposing revised tariffs on 70 countries.

India faces a steep 25 per cent tariff, higher than most of its neighbors, Pakistan (19 per cent), Bangladesh (20 per cent), Afghanistan (15 per cent), Indonesia (19 per cent), Japan (15 per cent), and Sri Lanka (20 per cent), except for Myanmar, which faces a 40 per cent rate. 

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